Prime Minister Barnier to resign as France’s political crisis deepens

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier will resign on Thursday after far-right and leftist lawmakers voted to topple his government, plunging the euro zone’s second-largest economy deeper into a political crisis.

Barnier was seen heading to the Elysee Palace on Thursday morning, where he was expected to hand in his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron.

BFM TV and French TV stations broadcast images of Barnier’s car heading over to the Elysee on the rainy morning in the French capital.

Barnier, a veteran politician who was formerly the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, will be the shortest-serving prime minister in modern French history after he hands in his resignation at around 10 am (0900 GMT). No French government had lost a confidence vote since Georges Pompidou’s in 1962.

The political turmoil further weakens a European Union already reeling from the implosion of Germany’s coalition government and comes weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

The hard left and far right punished Barnierin a no-confidence vote on Wednesday evening for trying to push an unpopular budget through an unruly hung parliament without a vote. The draft budget had sought 60 billion euros ($63 billion) in savings in a drive to shrink a gaping deficit.